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 lower jaw, kicked her in the belly and again pulled at the reins. But she did not move, but gazed at her master with one of her speaking looks, and buried her nose in the sand.

"Aaah! what have I done?" cried Vronsky, taking her head in his hands. "Aaah! what have I done?" And the lost race! and his humiliating, unpardonable blunder! and the poor ruined horse! "Aaah! what have I done?"

The people's doctor and his assistant, the officers of his regiment, ran to his aid; but to his great mortification he found that he was safe and sound. The horse's back was broken and she had to be killed,

Vronsky could not answer the questions which were put to him, could not speak a word to any one; he turned away and, without picking up his cap, left the hippodrome, not knowing whither he was going. He was in despair. For the first time in his life he was the victim of a misfortune for which there was no remedy, and for which he felt that he himself was the only one to blame.

Yashvin, with his cap, overtook him and brought him back to his quarters, and in half an hour Vronsky was calm and self-possessed again; but this race was for a long time the most bitter and cruel remembrance of his life.

CHAPTER XXVI

external relations of Alekseï Aleksandrovitch and his wife were the same as they had been. The only difference was that he was more absorbed in his work than he had been. Early in the spring he went abroad, as was his custom each year, to recuperate at the water-cure after the fatigues of the winter. He returned in July, as he usually did, and resumed his duties with new energy. His wife had taken up her summer quarters as usual in a datcha, or summer villa, not far from Petersburg; he remained in the city.

Since their conversation after the reception at the Princess Tverskaya's, he had said nothing more about